“And another one gone, and another one gone. Another one bites the dust”
The wildcards kept coming this week for The Great and The Good as both Granville and Jay decided to overhaul their squads. As a reminder, I have selected an assortment of managers to follow and gain some kind of insight into the strategies that work or in some cases don’t work. The Great and The Good are: Jay Egersdorff, Ville Ronka, The Scoutcasters (Joe, Andy, Az, David, Granville, and Mark), Eliteserien’s expert Niemi, and the last man standing Torres Magic.
Overall Performance
Let’s start by looking at this week’s performance. Niemi played a blinder; his decision to go early with Hazard looks a good one and his transfers were inspired, bringing in Alonso and.. Billing!? A bit of luck with the Brighton man who came off his bench and delivered nine points. The Eliteserien expert achieved an impressive 71 points and went into the top 25k. He sits just 2 points behind Torres Magic who managed another green arrow with 56 points with Ings coming off the bench with a goal.
Granville’s wildcard seems to have paid quick returns with a decent-ish green arrow this week, although he’ll be thankful to Hennessey whose penalty save made the difference. Jay’s wildcard didn’t pay off this week and a red arrow sees him just inside the the 700k mark. Last week’s early wildcarders Ville Ronka and Mark also had poor weeks supporting the argument for more patience before pulling the trigger. Mark still remains outside the top million. I am predicting Andy will be next to play his wildcard (if he hasn’t done already) after his team managed only 42 points. His weak bench was not able to cope with Zaha’s injury and he suffered some bad luck with two of his players only managing a minute on the pitch (Bailly, Mkhitaryan).
TorresMagic GW 56 pts Total 294 pts (rank 17270)
Niemi GW 71 pts Total 292 pts (rank 21349)
Az GW 58 pts Total 282 pts (rank 60877)
Ville Ronka GW 49 pts Total 272 pts (rank 100803)
Granville GW 55 pts Total 270 pts (rank 116090)
David GW 55 pts Total 268 pts (rank 137918)
Joe GW 54 pts Total 263 pts (rank 189052)
Andy GW 42 pts Total 246 pts (rank 476960)
Jay Egersdorff GW 44 pts Total 238 pts (rank 691177)
Mark GW 46 pts Total 227 pts (rank 1091500)
Transfers and Hits
First the wildcards….
Jay Egersdorff
In – Ryan, Button, Robertson,Alonso, Bennett, Mkhitaryan, Silva,Neves,Walcott
Wilson, Zaha
Out – Hamer, Foster, Cedric, Shaw, Coleman, Pedro, Mane,Siggy,Richarlison
Kamara, Deeney
Jay pretty much press the reset button on his team with 11 changes. Only the fantastic four of Aguero, Salah, Wan-Bissaka and Mendy survived. His bad luck continued however with Zaha getting an injury straight away, Mkhitaryan only making the bench and like many others he got Walcott fever only for the Everton man to fail to deliver. Salt was rubbed into the wounds when the jilted Deeney went onto score against Spurs. Let’s hope it turns around for him.
Granville
In – Speroni, Hennessey, Doherty, Alonso
Silva, Groß, Wilson, Mitrovic
Out – Stekelenburg, Foster, Peltier, Tomkins, Stephens, Richarlison, Aubameyang, Arnautovic
Granville’s moves were slightly more modest in comparison. He has obviously lost faith in Aubameyang so let’s hope he doesn’t live to regret that one after he scored on Sunday. That allowed him to bring in the popular Alonso, along with Silva and Mitrovic. Groß is an interesting move with Brighton fixtures improving although not off to the best of starts after his penalty miss.
This is a summary of the transfers in from the remaining managers:-
Andy – Walcott (Richarlison)
Az – Alonso, Gundogan (Luiz, Richarlison)
David – Deeney, Alonso (King, Tomkins)
Joe – Pedro, Alonso (Richarlison, Shaw)
Mark – Walcott (Richarlison)
Niemi – Billing, Alonso (Richarlison, Cedric)
Torres Magic – Walcott (Richarlison)
Ville Ronka – Walcott (Richarlison)
*transfers out are in brackets.
So after Jota was ruthlessly cut last week, this time round it was Richarlison who was shown the door by all our managers. The most popular choice was Walcott who almost predictably let them down. Well done to Joe for being immune to Wally fever. There was also a clamour to get Alonso with Joe, Az, David and Niemi all taking a hit to get the marauding left back. This of course proved much more successful.
Team Selection
After the wildcards and the initial changes the template now looks like this:
Foster, Fab
Mendy, Wan-Bissaka, Robertson, Peltier, Alonso
Salah, Walcott, Mane, Stephens, Mkhitaryan
Aguero, Ings, Kamara/Mitrovic/Wilson/Zaha
A few changes this week with Richarlison being kicked out and replaced by Walcott. Alonso justifiably cemented his place in the template but upfront it’s much more confused. Aguero is the standout striker but then there is a mixed bag of option being deployed by the great and good.
Team Investment and Formation
Average Cost of Player looks like this across the teams based on week 1 prices:
Goalkeeper – 4.5
Defender – 5.2
Midfielder – 8.1
Forward – 7.8
ITB – 0.3
The Alonso factor sees an increase in spend at the back but we continue to see the bulk of the budget in midfield with only Mark investing in more than one big hitter upfront. Much more variety this week in the formations played with the popular 3-4-3 being rivalled by 4-3-3. We saw a 4-4-2 used and even a 4-5-1 set up by Ville Ronka. Although some of these formations changed due to unforeseen injuries and unplanned substitutes. However, as you would expect to this point in the season 3-4-3 and 3-5-2 remain the most popular with those been the preffered options.
Captain and Differentials
This week it was Aguero who dominated the captaincy with only Mark keeping faith with Salah. In fact, he seems to be making a point this season by putting the armband on the Egyptian in every game this season. So far this season it has been a straight call between Aguero and Salah for the captaincy with the Liverpool man being picked 68% of the time by the great and good. Overall, the managers have achieved an average score of 17.5 from their captain picks this season thanks to the consistency of these two heavy hitters. It will be interesting to see if Hazard or Aubameyang start to become options in the next few weeks.
In terms of differentials across these teams I think Aubameyang could be key to Mark’s season if he can kick on from his first goal especially with his run of games. I have already applauded Niemi for being the only one to bring Hazard so far and Maddison continues to go under the radar for Az. Not so sure about Mark’s Sessegnon and Gundogan for Az but I may be proved wrong.
Finally good work by David who brought in Deeney as a makeweight but was the only manager to reap the benefit from his goal on Sunday.
Anyway that’s all for now and don’t have nightmares.
